Pakistan’s Campus Lynching

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 6 July 2017

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What drives a mob to climb several flights of stairs, break down a dormitory door and kill the young man inside? Secunder Kermani pieces together the last hours of Mashal Khan, the undergraduate beaten to death by vigilantes in April, 2017.

It happened in the small city of Mardan, set on a fertile plain below mountains that form part of the border with Afghanistan. Until recently, this part of Pakistan was officially known as a “frontier”.

Here, as in the rest of this huge Muslim country, blasphemy is a crime. And if the police won’t enforce the law, there’s a code. “If you have to kill someone as a punishment, do it in such a way that all connections to his brain are disconnected and there is no pain,” one local politician explained. “Just bury him afterwards.”

Mashal Khan was not so lucky. His slow, painful death and subsequent mutilation was captured on mobile phones. The shocking footage spread quickly and reignited the controversy over Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws.

There have been rallies in support of the victim’s family. His grave is blanketed in tinsel and flowers from sympathisers. But there’ve been rallies for the alleged killers as well.

The BBC’s Secunder Kermani is based in Pakistan and has gone to meet the families and friends on both sides of this story and asks, Who was Mashal Khan? And why did he die?

Transcript

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0:00.0	What drives a group of students to rampage across a university campus, hunt down one of their classmates and beat him to death.
0:13.0	I'm Sakhonda Kamani and for this edition of assignment on the BBC World Service I'm in Pakistan to try and answer that question and what it might mean for this huge Muslim country's volatile debate over blasphemy.
0:34.0	And a warning, some of what's to come might be inappropriate for some audiences.
0:39.0	The victim's name was Michelle Khan. This is him talking to an online radio station about his interest in left-wing books, promoting social justice and redistribution of wealth.
0:57.0	Our BBC team was one of the few outlets to cover his funeral back in April.
1:04.8	Many Pakistani TV channels were too nervous about being seen to support someone accused of committing blasphemy.
1:11.8	But his father helped change public opinion with a dignified
1:15.4	and articulate response just hours after cleaning and burying his son's battered body.
1:21.1	This milk me is her ripe for a year. body. his tongue. They killed my son and then laid the blame on him. I'm his father. He
1:38.6	used to talk lovingly about the Prophet Mohammed. A month after the funeral, his father showed me around Michelle's bedroom in the family home.
1:50.0	A long shelf in the small simple room was covered with academic awards.
1:55.0	These trophies are from school and these ones are from college.
2:01.0	Michelle's father has been inundated with media requests since College. channels are confident enough to cover the case.
2:13.0	Ahead of my visit, Michelle's father had already laid photos of him out on the bed.
2:18.0	Michelle was a tall, well-built young man with a slightly chubby and happy face. It's how the family want to remember him.
2:27.0	When his father played a song dedicated to Michelle, his eyes watered up.
2:40.0	His eyes watered up. He was a mystic, philosopher and poet, a writer by birth. He was very loving. He talked about peace, patience and nonviolence.
2:57.0	Michelle grew up in the small village of Zeddah in northern Pakistan.
3:03.4	It's a dusty place surrounded by green fields similar to villages across the country.
3:09.0	Michelle had opportunities many here didn't.
3:12.4	He earned a scholarship to study in Russia a few years back.
3:15.9	I said Major Hena Peli,
	...

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